Mystery writer Harriet Vane is on holiday—a solitary walking tour on the southwest coast of England. On a deserted beach—well, nearly deserted—she comes across the body of a young man who's had his throat cut. The tide is coming in quickly and, as there is not another living soul in sight and the nearest town is miles away, Harriet photographs the corpse before it is washed away. The mystery puzzles her, though ... was this a murder or a suicide? Or was it a political plot? With the help of Lord Peter Wimsey, she pursues the death in this story that is "Written with distinction and wit … as much a psychological story as an experiment in detection" (The Spectator). Called "one of the greatest mystery story writers of this century" by the Los Angeles Times, Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) was a British novelist, essayist, and scholar best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey tales, which have been nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Series of the Century. At the beginning of the series in 1923, the monocled aristocrat is a carefree war hero with loads of money and free time to spend on amateur sleuthing; by the time the series ends Lord Peter has developed into a man of conscience and moral responsibility, though the series never loses its wit. Accompanied in many of his adventures by mystery writer Harriet Vane—they meet in Strong Poison and marry in Busman's Honeymoon—Lord Peter is, as Sayers wrote, "the romantic soul at war with a realistic brain." This handsome paperback edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth George, creator of another, very different aristocratic detective, Inspector Thomas Lynley.